Erik_ wrote:Christianity is universal, it's not merely about racial Judaism. To be honest, it really has nothing to do with race at all; "There is neither Jew, nor Greek" - all are one in Christ. Yes, Jesus was Jewish, but if that is all you see, then you are being plagued by the toxicity of racism. Stop these trolling antics of yours and seek Jesus in prayer, from your heart. You are on a philosophy site, a place where people want to discover truth. You will discover the Truth of Christ, if you are serious about it. Jesus bless you.

Universalism and globalism is Judaism my shaboy goy.

Are you mad bro? I don't need your Jewish blessing, save them for the synagogue, err.. church.

Your entire world of fantasy and make believe is doomed, have a nice day.

Unfortunately, Christianity has been distorted in so many ways throughout the ages. So many different denominations, so many misinterpretations, so much misunderstanding. It was never supposed to be this way. God's message is simple, yet profound: Love God with all yourheart, mind, and strength - and love your neighbor as yourself. What does it mean to love God?First off, before answering that, we must understand who and what God is. So, what is God? Contrary to modern depictions, God is not a human being, a male human being, who is sitting ona throne in the clouds. Paintings of God, in this manner, are meant to be symbolic, not literal. God, of course, is a literal being; he really does exist, but as previously mentioned, he is not a human being.God is the ultimate, eternal reality - without beginning and without end. He is boundless, infinite.He has not set form (visual), he can take on any form. His nature is benevolence, harmony, beauty, brilliant power, peace and love.All things originate from him and all things flow to him. He is the source of all things. Another common misconception is that God is a mere male or masculine being. God can appear as masculine or feminine energy, or both combined. I will go into detail more about this at another time. So, returning to the question "What does it mean to love God?". To love God is to know God, to discover God, to commune with Godand to manifest his light to other people, who are lost, disconnected from the source of all things. When you bring happiness to someone's heart, that is the real action of life and the real action of worshipping. When you make someone happy, you are worshipping God. To love God is NOT about harsh rules; God is NOT a tyrant.God does NOT want people to fear him, nor is he trying to impose harsh rules and commands on us. It's not about obedience, behavior control, nor anything harsh like that, it's about love and the love of God is something free-flowing, passionate, heart-felt and mystical. It's not strenuous, it's something that flows naturally and smoothly from our hearts.

(to be continued...)

how would you know this is the truth, and not, lies whispered by lucifer?

lucifer was the lightbringer, jesus said "i am the light" see the resemblance? lucifer was cast down from the heavens because he wanted to exalt himself above god, so we possessed jesus in the desert ending up exalting himself above god in the churches, "thou shalt not make graven images and bow down before them" yet both christians and muslims does that, the great deceiver has fall these religious people.

Meno_ wrote:Lucifer can be deceived by a Faust, his illumination as a fraud, is easily exposed, for what it is by greed of souls. Those who can recognize deceit, can also immediately recognize hypocracy.

The Genesis account can be interpreted literally or metaphorically. There are, actually, many Christians who interpret it allegorically. The book of Revelation is full of symbolism and metaphor, so it's not anything new for a book to be interpreted from this lens. Evolution being true does NOT mean that God does not exist; it just means that God, Yahweh, is the guiding force behind evolution.

The biblical narrative of Genesis 1 is very clear.

"God is Creator of all things", and has revealed in Scripture the account of His creative activity.

In six days the Lord made 'the heaven and the earth' and all living things upon the earth, and rested on the seventh day of that first week.

The first man and woman were made in the image of God and given dominion over the world, and charged with responsibility to care for it.

When the world was finished it was 'very good'.

There is no need for evolution. Evolution is a religion that does not give satisfactory answers which is not a fact but a theory. It operates on the basis that things are getting better and is teaching the exact opposite of what we scientifically observe in the universe.

This whole evolutionary religion is to undermine the teachings of truth that you find in the Bible, that God is the creator.

He made you in His image. You did not evolve. This idea of evolutionary religion only lowers the standard and make us act like beasts.

I never stated that God was not the creator of all things.I simply hold to the stance that the Genesis account is allegorical. The book of Revelation describes a monster coming out of sea with seven heads and ten horns. Does this mean a beast will literally come out of the ocean with seven heads, or is this rather symbolic of some sort of Earthly ruler or event? The book of Genesis, like the book of Revelation, has a symbolic narrative.

Believing in evolution does not lower standards. We are still created in the image of God. Even though we evolved, we are still distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom. We have transcended, reached a higher level of existence.

I never stated that God was not the creator of all things.I simply hold to the stance that the Genesis account is allegorical.

There are people who enjoy rational thought and tend to despise the emotions, they prefer the experience of a kind of euphoria from the purity of intelligence and the satisfaction of rational thinking. The mind enjoys immensely the way it is logical and controlling but above all makes sense of disorder, one could say almost mathematical. So it would not be unreasonable to say by comparison that emotions are all over the place, they are not precise and they can quickly get out of control, so why would an educated person, a scientist, for example, believe in creation. It seems quite reasonable that they would gravitate and defend Darwinian evolution or even theistic evolution, a figurative (non-literal) interpretation of the Genesis account of creation. The biblical account of Genesis has been deduced to a religious myth and only those uneducated in scientific methods, would seriously entertain any validity in such a "myth", yet there are scientists who have doubts about evidence for evolution and based on the two thermodynamic laws of nature, (the two most basic laws in the entire science realm), one could rationally present as being wholly consistent with biblical creation.

The Latin word religare, means “to tie, to bind”, which perhaps could explain the experience or power religion has on some.

The first law states that energy is conserved or constant at all times. Energy, in whichever of its many forms, absolutely can be neither created nor destroyed. This rule ensures a dependable and predictable universe, whether for stars or for human life.

The second basic law of nature also involves energy. It describes unavoidable losses in any process whatsoever which involves the transfer of energy. The energy does not disappear but some always becomes unavailable, often as unusable heat. In other words, everything deteriorates, breaks down and becomes less ordered with time. Ultimately death itself is a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics.

Energy conservation implies that the universe did not start up by itself. Energy decay further implies that this universe cannot last forever. Secular science has no satisfactory explanation for such laws of nature.

The book of Revelation describes a monster coming out of sea with seven heads and ten horns. Does this mean a beast will literally come out of the ocean with seven heads, or is this rather symbolic of some sort of Earthly ruler or event? The book of Genesis, like the book of Revelation, has a symbolic narrative.

Sometimes we over-spiritualize basic things in the Bible, never letting the words just plainly speak for themselves. Of course, there are many spiritual symbols in Scripture, but when the Bible says, "the first man and woman were made in the image of God and given dominion over the world, and charged with responsibility to care for it", some people might agonize over this phrase, trying to squeeze some spiritual abstract meaning out of a straightforward verse.

Believing in evolution does not lower standards. We are still created in the image of God. Even though we evolved, we are still distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom. We have transcended, reached a higher level of existence.

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

Genesis 1:2-5, God Himself is the source of light, and the source of life:

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Consider verses 5, 8, and 13 as examples:

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day...

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day...

Otto_West wrote:The name and label of Christianity was concocted by Paul.

It came from the Hindu, "Krishna".

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

Otto_West wrote:The name and label of Christianity was concocted by Paul.

It came from the Hindu, "Krishna".

Or Greek Xριστός (Khristos), meaning Anointed, which in turn is the literal translation of the Hebrew word Messiah.

Since Sankskrit is the original Indo European language though I can see that the terms Krishna and Khristos could share the same root.

Though....

I must register my disagreement with Mr Veda Nath Mohabir’s reference to the “etymological similarity between Krisna and Christ” in his letter of August 8, 2008. While it is true that many parallels can be drawn between the Lord Krisna of Hindu theology and the iconic Jesus-the-Christ of Christian theology, there is no etymological similarity between the words ‘Krisna’ and ‘Christ’. Let me demonstrate.Wikipedia gives the meaning of both names. “The Sanskrit word krsna has the literal meaning of “black”, “dark” or “dark-blue”, and is used as a name to describe someone with dark skin. Krishna is often depicted in murtis (images) as black, and is generally shown in paintings with blue skin. Krishna is also known by various other names, epithets and titles, which reflect his many associations and attributes. Among the most common names are Govinda, “finder of cows”, or Gopala, “protector of cows”, which refer to Krishna’s childhood in Vraja. … Krishna is also interpreted as meaning ‘all-attractive one’.”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krishna)“Christ is the English term for the Greek Khristós meaning “the anointed“. In the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, Khristós was used to translate the Hebrew Mašíah, meaning “[one who is] anointed.” Modern Christianity states that Christ was fully human as well as fully God, while the Jewish tradition understands the Messiah to be a human being – without any overtone of deity or divinity… Khristós in classical Greek usage could mean covered in oil, and is thus a literal translation of messiah. The Greek term is thought to derive from the Proto-Indo-European root of ghrei- (“to rub”), which in Germanic languages, such as English, mutated into gris- and grim-. Hence the English words grisly, grim, grime, gizm and grease, are thought to be cognate with Christ, though these terms came to have a negative connotation, where the Greek word had a positive connotation. In French the Greek term mutated first to creŝme and then to crème, due to the loss of certain ‘s’ usages in French, which was loaned into English as cream.”

It goes to show how degenerate man has become when he becomes ecstatic in the "presence" of the "holy spirit" (think of those mega churches or southern baptist churches or any Latin American church )...But when confronted with the ancient Greeks, he feels nothing... Like he has lost all "sense"...

Compare to what Nietzsche says about the impression that the ancient Greeks give:

Nearly every age and stage of culture has at some time or other sought with profound irritation to free itself from the Greeks, because in their presence everything one has achieved oneself, though apparently quite original and sincerely admired, suddenly seemed to lose life and color and shriveled into a poor copy, even a caricature. And so time after time cordial anger erupts against this presumptuous little people that made bold for all time to designate everything not native as “barbaric.” Who are they, one asks, who, though they display only an ephemeral historical splendor, ridiculously restricted institutions, dubious excellence in their mores, and are marked by ugly vices, yet lay claim to that dignity and pre-eminence among peoples which characterize genius among the masses? Unfortunately, no one was lucky enough to find the cup of hemlock with which one could simply dispose of such a character; for all the poison that envy, calumny, and rancor created did not suffice to destroy that self-sufficient splendor. And so one feels ashamed and afraid in the presence of the Greeks, unless one prizes truth above all things and dares acknowledge even this truth: that the Greeks, as charioteers, hold in their hands the reins of our own and every other culture, but that almost always chariot and horses are of inferior quality and not up to the glory of their leaders, who consider it sport to run such a team into an abyss which they themselves clear with the leap of Achilles.

Christ is (at best) sort of a young dying Greek god but completely divorced from heroic Greek values, a pagan god superimposed on a Jewish value system.

And most self-proclaimed Christians can't even live up to the level of discipline required by the Bible to actually be a Christian in the true sense (which would require living a very austere, monkish type of life)... and even this type of Christian, even if free of resentment, still retreats from the world.

As a pillar of rising smoke did my angel condescend and appear, standing without reserve on the exhausted banks of infinite sorrow.

Otto_West wrote:The name and label of Christianity was concocted by Paul.

It came from the Hindu, "Krishna".

Even if that was the case which I've read over the possible Indian and Buddhist connections to Christianity it is a foreign religion introduced in the west with Jewish leanings. Makes no level of difference whatsoever.

Your entire world of fantasy and make believe is doomed, have a nice day.

Hahaha. You know that it is written in Hebrew, perhaps. But you clearly haven't looked at all the possible translations of the original words.

Mate, give me a little bit more than that.

Are your referring to the Greek Septuagint as one of your possible translations? or

"The Jewish Tanakh follows the Masoretic textual tradition, while some Christian groups follow ancient translations based on other textual traditions (Septuagint, Peshitta, Vulgate, etc.) or combine readings from different textual traditions. The Jewish Publishing Society's 1917 English translation is subtitled, "According to the Masoretic Text". Eastern Orthodox translators follow the Septuagint reading. Syriac Orthodox translators use an ancient translation called Peshitta. Catholic translators regularly consult the Vulgate, an ancient Latin translation. Protestant and interdenominational translation are influenced by these sources and (since 1946) the Dead Sea Scrolls".

Generally, the differences are minor to nonexistent, but occasionally a word or phrase will differ. Usually the translator will note such variations in footnotes.

HAS MESSIAH COME? by Avram YehoshuaA most amazing thing occurs in the ninth chapter of Daniel: we’re told when Messiah would come. But instead of explaining it to us, our Rabbis curse anyone wanting to find it out: ‘Rabbi Samuel b. Nachmani said in the name (of) Rabbi Jonathan: ‘Blasted be the bones of those who calculate the end.

There is a lot to respond to in here. I will address some of the things. There are copious amounts of Christians who interpret Genesis allegorically. A famous Christian apologist, William Lane Craig, does - he believes in theistic evolution, as well as many other Christian scholars and laymen. Genesis is very symbolic. Example: Eve being created out of Adam's rib - that is very much dream-like symbolism.

Perpetual, Jesus is the greatest warrior of all-time. He was not divorced from heroic values. Heroes are people who save others from calamity, no? Beowulf saving the people from Grendel, for example. Jesus saved us from the worst monster of all: the devil. The hero is fueled by the intense love within his heart for his people. Christ's battle was not physical (swords, spears), it was spiritual, on a higher level. Jesus is the quintessence of the heroic. He is the most epic hero of all time and he is now seated at the right hand of God, with great glory.

And Christianity is not about austerity, nor asceticism; it's about love. Love is the essence of the gospel. Love God with all your soul, heart, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus' sacrifice upon the cross was the ultimate manifestation of God's love.

A famous Christian apologist, William Lane Craig, does - he believes in theistic evolution,.....

In theistic evolution, the Bible is regarded as a collection of documents which partially contains God’s Word. Christians who adopt evolution are inconsistent because essentially, they are telling God that they believe Him but they do not trust Him when He tells us about how He created the world.

God is not going to judge someone based off whether they believe Genesis is allegorical or literal; He is going to judge them based of whether or not they accept that Jesus died for their sins and rose again on the third day. You are saved by faith alone in the sacrifice of Jesus, you are not saved by holding to the exact same interpretations of certain denominations about how the world was created or how it will be destroyed. Faith in the Holy blood of Jesus is what saves alone.

This goes without saying but I will anyway. If you accept Jesus into your heart you will live by a higher conscience with the purity of an angel (Jesus), if you do not live by the example of Jesus then Jesus is not in your heart and you may not like what comes next especially living the lie of saying you have Jesus in your heart. It really is an impossible way to live as clean as Jesus.

Lump wrote:lucifer was the lightbringer, jesus said "i am the light" see the resemblance? lucifer was cast down from the heavens because he wanted to exalt himself above god, so we possessed jesus in the desert ending up exalting himself above god in the churches, "thou shalt not make graven images and bow down before them" yet both christians and muslims does that, the great deceiver has fall these religious people.

Erik_ wrote:There is a lot to respond to in here. I will address some of the things. There are copious amounts of Christians who interpret Genesis allegorically. A famous Christian apologist, William Lane Craig, does - he believes in theistic evolution, as well as many other Christian scholars and laymen. Genesis is very symbolic. Example: Eve being created out of Adam's rib - that is very much dream-like symbolism.

Perpetual, Jesus is the greatest warrior of all-time. He was not divorced from heroic values. Heroes are people who save others from calamity, no? Beowulf saving the people from Grendel, for example. Jesus saved us from the worst monster of all: the devil. The hero is fueled by the intense love within his heart for his people. Christ's battle was not physical (swords, spears), it was spiritual, on a higher level. Jesus is the quintessence of the heroic. He is the most epic hero of all time and he is now seated at the right hand of God, with great glory.

And Christianity is not about austerity, nor asceticism; it's about love. Love is the essence of the gospel. Love God with all your soul, heart, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus' sacrifice upon the cross was the ultimate manifestation of God's love.

im pretty sure god is the worst monster ever made, after all he made hell... and cursed as all to live a life inside a shitty world, which he all could have prevented i might add.